Boat Ride

By Henry S. Reimert

Photo provided by Patrick Shaffer

Kari’s bicycle tires crackle and pop as they roll over the crushed oyster shells of the parking lot. She lets the bike coast to a stop and performs a practiced dismount. She lands with a little puff of white dust that spurts out from beneath her sandaled feet.

The air is cold this morning, but Kari knows it will be a hot one today as soon as the sun starts to rise in the east. It will be the last warm day for several months. Locals like to say that Maryland has seven seasons and right now it’s Second Summer, that week or so in late October when the temperatures are in the 80s. After today, the cold will start rolling in, and it will stay that way through Actual Fall and not warm up again until Fool’s Spring.

Kari’s job requires her to come here every day regardless of the weather. Since she is the sole conductor of her business, it falls upon her to be here for customers, rain or shine. She has been doing it for a very long time. Kari doesn’t recall how long it has been, but she does remember arriving shortly after the first group of nine Greek boys stepped off the boat in Baltimore. Those poor things were escaping a massacre in their homeland and fled here for the promise of a new world. They were good Christian boys, but one of them still believed in the old ways. And that belief was strong enough that Kari decided to follow along.

Things were much different when she first got here. In fact, Kari was a “he” back then. It was not until the latter half of the 20^th century that she decided to change the spelling of her name, give it a more American feel, and adopt a look more befitting. Regardless of the new name and new look, she still had the same role to perform. It is a very simple job with simple rules – you pay the fee, you get the ride. And right now, her job was to sit and wait.

Kari props her bike against a pin oak at the road’s edge. She remembers when this tree was just a sapling. That was back when Hurricane Hazel came up the Chesapeake in ’54 and tore out a dozen or so old trees that lined this place, including the white pine Kari used to prop her bike against. Back then, this was just the end of a long dirt road. Today, it is the overflow parking lot for the public access boat ramp. No one uses it for that though. The few that do come here, the few that remember, come here for Kari. There are so few of them left, those that still believe in the old ways.

From the brush behind the tree, Kari pulls a small wicker fishing basket and a Coleman camp chair, both had seen better days. Many of the creel’s willow strips were cracked, and some were even missing, somehow creating fewer holes than the weave once had. The chair wasn’t in any better shape, with its nylon seat so frayed it was almost translucent. Neither the chair nor the basket had been new when Kari had gotten them; they were just tokens left behind by those who had passed through here and never came back. She considers it a perk of the job.

Kari walks her chair and basket to where the parking lot meets the Gunpowder River. It’s not really the Gunpowder; it’s just a backwater creek with no name that connects to the river a few hundred yards away. At the edge of the water is a small dock. The dock, like everything else here, was worn and weathered, but serviceable. With the public ramp a quarter mile away, this little slice of the Gunpowder doesn’t see much action, especially not on a Tuesday in late October.

A lone boat sits tied to the pier, its hull a chalky white of old aluminum identical to the bone white of the crushed oyster shell lot. Kari thinks the boat might have been painted brown at one point. Her memory hasn’t left her, not like some old folks she’s known. It’s just as good as it ever was. But sometimes, for the better, details like this are meant to be forgotten. If Kari remembered everything, she might go crazy. The boat’s registration numbers, MD 1736 AF, are still visible, but barely. Kari always marvels at the longevity of the glue that holds those stickers in place. She’s betting on the boat corroding away to nothing underneath them before those stickers give up their grip.

Kari eases into her chair to enjoy the last hour of the night, when the nocturnal creatures settle in and before the dawn awakens the rest. She angles her seat to see both the parking lot and the backwater. She stubbornly avoids looking down the creek to the open water. That’s where she really wants to be, adrift on the river, but watching for work comes first.

The white scum, typical of brackish backwaters, makes the water appear as a solid sheet from bank to bank as if you could walk across and not get your feet wet. Even the amber and red leaves that fall from the October trees lay gently on the surface. There are no bugs buzzing about this late in the year, and the fish must be feeding elsewhere.

Kari relaxes further into the camp chair and pulls the hood of her Ocean City sweatshirt up over her head. It’s three sizes too big for her and used to be a bright red. Now, it is the dull bubblegum pink of having spent too many days in the sun. It’s perfect for sitting by the water when the weather starts to turn chilly. Kari sometimes tucks her bony knees up into the bulky sweatshirt and sits like a cocoon. Until someone comes, of course. No one ever sees her like this; that just wouldn’t do.

Kari sits and waits. She’s never busy but work will always come along. Today won’t be any different. It isn’t until the sun is fully over the horizon and Kari is basking in the warmth, that she hears the crunch-puff, crunch-puff of approaching steps. Between each step, she hears something else, the shuffle of tiny feet. She uncurls her legs from the sweatshirt and ponders the sounds; two customers this morning? And one is only a child? She hears them making their way closer, the sounds coming from the far end of the parking lot. The adult, a man, is telling the child a story as they walk hand-in-hand. Kari rises from her chair and turns to watch them approach. She gives her sweatshirt a little shake, and the sleeves fall to cover her hands, and the bottom falls below her waist. She leaves the hood up, but she can still hear their conversation.

“And when you go to big kid school, you won’t have to take naps anymore,” the man says.

The boy, Kari is almost certain the child is a boy, asks, “Can I eat my lunch there?”

“Yes, every day. And you can even get lunch at school. You don’t have to bring one from home.” The man replies.

“What do they have to eat?” The boy sounds excited and apprehensive at the same time.

Before the man can answer, he looks up to see the dark form of Kari, now only a few yards away, backlit by the rising sun. He comes to a stop pulling the boy with him.

“Hello,” Kari says, her voice, mostly unused, comes out clear and smooth. The man only stares at Kari, his mouth slightly agape. The only thing visible of Kari’s face is her clear, blue eyes. The boy looks between the man and Kari and back again. After a moment, he steps forward and offers his tiny hand to Kari.

“Hello, I’m Leo,” he says, “We want a boat ride.”

Kari lowers to one knee and looks the boy in the eye. Her leathery fingers close around the boy’s tender, pink hand.

“Hello, Leo. My name is Karen, but my friends call me Kari,” Kari lies. She doesn’t have any friends, and no one calls her by name these days. “I think you are very young, much too young for a boat ride. Don’t you think?”

Kari tilts her head and addresses this last part to the man.

Instead of answering, the man stammers out, “I-I-I didn’t think you-you would really be here.”

Kari forgives the man for this discourtesy and turns her attention back to the boy, “Why is it you want a boat ride, Leo?”

“Mommy lives with the angels, and we can take a boat ride to see her,” the boy says.

“I see,” Kari says. Still holding Leo’s hand, she gets to her feet again, and narrowing her eyes to the man, says, “Is that so?”

This seems to break the man from his shock. His breath catches, and he steadies himself before saying, “His mom, m-my wife, d-died a few weeks ago.”

It was not within her purview to question, she was only here to ferry the boat, nothing more. But the man’s response angered her. Why take someone so young? The boy had his entire life before him. This was not how it should be.

“Why would you bring a child to me?” Kari asked.

“To ride…,” the man starts.

“No,” Kari cuts him off, “I did not ask what you are here for. I asked why you are here?”

The man takes a deep breath.“It’s been rough, a rough few weeks. It’s only us now; we don’t have any family. I, uh, we just can’t be without her. I don’t care for resurrection, I want to join the world to come.”

“She’s with the angels now. Right, Daddy?” Leo interjects.

“Yes, buddy, she’s with the angels in heaven,” the man says to Leo.

Kari can see the man is on the edge of breaking down. He stammers out, “I, uh, we needed to get away from it all. There are too many memories.”

Kari breaks eye contact with the man and peers over her shoulder at the water. In all her years, Kari has never refused a charter; it’s not her nature. With proper payment, she must perform her duty. She turns back to the man and boy and holds out her right hand, palm up. With a sigh, she says, “Forgetting isn’t always an option, but we can always go away.”

The man looks from Kari’s blue eyes to her pale hand. It takes a moment for the realization to break through. Even in this world of credit cards and digital payments, the gesture of “the payment is due” is still recognizable. The man fumbles in his pocket until he pulls out a leather-bound money clip with several folded bills, a keyring with an electronic fob and a single house key, and, underneath the pile, a simple gold band. The man begins to pull the bills from the clip, stops, and looks into Kari’s eyes for an answer. He picks the ring up, and it slides over the tip of his index finger. With his thumb, he spins the band, and it shines in the morning sunlight. He squeezes it one last time and lets it slip into Kari’s open palm. With that, Kari moves to the boy.

“He…” the man begins. Kari’s expression never changes, and he falls silent.  

“Everyone must pay their own fare,” she says and turns to the boy, who is oblivious to the exchange. He pulls what looks like a yellow pencil eraser from his pocket. He holds it up to his lips and whispers something inaudible before placing it in Kari’s hand. It falls perfectly inside the gold ring. It is a tiny cylindrical doll’s head with brown plastic hair. 

Satisfied, Kari turns and drops the ring and the tiny head into the creel under her chair.

“Come,” she says, and the man and boy follow her as she walks down the dock to the boat. When she reaches the boat, she turns and faces them. Extending her right arm to the man, she says, “Grab my elbow and then step down into the boat. Take your seat, and I will pass the boy down to you.”

Kari enjoys the look of silent revulsion as the man grasps her bony arm and how the expression changes to one of astonishment when the arm he holds onto is not withered and weak, but strong as steel cables.

Once the man is seated on the middle bench of the boat, Kari reaches down to pick up the boy, who stands with his arms raised. “In spite of everything, he has still not lost his trust in grownups,” Kari thinks. She turns to hand him down to his father but changes her mind and walks him to the front of the boat and places him on the bench seat closest to the bow.

The man looks as though he might protest, but Kari cuts him off. “He will be fine there, and it will make us more stable as we get to the open water.”

Kari lifts a long wooden pole from the side of the dock, and the boat dips the tiniest bit as she steps into the stern.

***

Kari doesn’t sit but instead stands with feet wide, straddling the keel, using the pole to push them from the dock. The boy leans forward with his arms on the gunnel and stares intently over the side. He appears captivated by the way the bow cuts through the flat water.

“Will he be okay…” the man starts, sighs, and seems to answer his own question.

Out on the water, Kari begins to feel the old-world magic returning to her. It flows through the water, through her feet, and into her bones. With this magic comes knowing.

“How sure are you that your wife will be there on the other side?” Kari asks.

“When we first started dating, she would tell me all the stories her grandmother used to tell her. About all the gods and heroes, and about the lovers that would become separated. And how they would eventually find one another. She said that was us. That we would find each other on the other side,” he says, the water’s magic pulling on strings of remembrance and sorrow.

“What happened to her?” Kari asks as she pushes them further into the creek.

“She was in an accident on 95,” the man says and then adds, “That’s a-a road.”

“I know what it is. How did it happen?” Kari asks.

“The police said her brakes failed. It was late at night. There was construction debris on the road, and the truck in front of her stopped hard to avoid it. They said there were barely any skid marks…” the man replies, that edge of mournfulness creeping back into his voice.

“Such a pity nothing in this world lasts. Cars should be built better. Cars have things to make them go so fast, they should also be able to stop fast.” Kari lets this last hang in the air between them.

She paddles some more, and the boat drifts further down the creek. The sun is a hand’s width above the horizon now and shines on the Gunpowder River ahead, causing the trees on either side to create a dark halo around the creek’s mouth. The man sits with his head in his hands.

“She shouldn’t have been driving it. The van needed a lot of work,” the man says, “We were going to trade it in. I didn’t want to dump any more money in it.”

As the small boat passes under the last of the trees, Kari feels the change come on stronger. They no longer travel the Gunpowder, but on something much older. She feels the pull of this river, not just its physical current but its ancient magic. Her people once called this place the River of Woe. Kari wonders if the others notice the change. The boy only sits in the prow, mesmerized by the little waves breaking against the side of the boat. But the man tucks his elbows in tight and squeezes his head, causing little tufts of hair to poke up through his fingers. He begins to rock side to side.

Kari is strong enough, and skilled enough, to counterbalance his motion so they don’t tip. After a few moments, he lifts his head and looks at her. The golden light of the sun shines on his face, and Kari can see the tracks of fresh tears.

“I told her I needed the car for lunch with my boss that day. That I couldn’t take the van. But I just didn’t want to drive it. I hated the van. I didn’t know she had to drive into the city. I didn’t know.”

The man sobs silently. Kari watches his shoulders heave and shudder. She feels no pity for him; he brought this upon himself. She waits until his breathing slows and asks, “But why bring the boy with you,” and then through gritted teeth, “to me?”

The man stiffens as the words bite into him.

“We have no family. He would be all alone if I left.”

“Yet you bring him here? To ride the ferry?” Kari growls, and a shudder runs along the boat. The man shrinks further away from Kari, but there is nowhere for him to cower.

“You could have sucked up your guilt and carried on. Gave your son the life he deserves. He is so young. He would have healed. But you’ve made all the choices. What choice did he have?”

“He wanted to be with his mommy again,” the man strangles out.

“You don’t know what awaits you on the other side. There are no promises, no contracts to honor. You made an eternal gamble, and he pays the ante with you. You will be judged and so shall he.”

The man slumps forward and weeps into his hands. Kari seethes inside, and the waters around the boat churn as if to match her inner turmoil. “To take one life is a crime,” Kari thinks, “but to take two and one of such innocence. Why?” With one shove, she could just toss him overboard, have him spend eternity with the other lost souls. And she could turn the boat around and let the boy go.

As if in response, a larger wave buffets the boat, and it pulls her from her ruminations. She cannot derelict her duty, not again. She has not been sent to judge. Kari knows the sorting lays on the other side, for the man and the boy. And that where she takes them, there is no coming back. Once you cross over, you are forever confined to its borders. As it happened with Persephone, so it happens to everyone.

The next few hours pass in silence. The sun hangs higher in the sky behind a haze of clouds. The boy is curled up on the front seat, and Kari wonders how he can balance himself. “Cats and children can find comfort anywhere,” she thinks and smiles. The man still sobs to himself, slumped against the gunnel, but his energy is spent. Kari hears him mutter to himself, but she cannot make out the words. Her inner fury has dissipated as well, she is resigned to her task.

Soon, they near the eastern shore, and the familiar white of the beach is visible. Much like her parking lot, the shores of this world are crushed, calcified remains, but not those of oysters. Kari swings the boat around, so it glides to a soft landing on the white powder along its port side. With her pole, she holds it fast against the beach.

“We are here. Get out,” Kari says. The man sits up in a daze, like after a long, restless night, and looks around. The beach is featureless for miles in every direction, and from their vantage point on the water, one cannot see beyond the low rise of the dunes.

“But where do we go?” the man asks.

“I have delivered you to the other side. My task is fulfilled,” Kari says, “Now, step carefully and mind you don’t touch the water.”

The tears run from his eyes again as he stands. The boat begins to rock as he stumbles forward with his heaving sobs, but Kari stabilizes it. He steps over the gunnel, and his foot sinks to the ankle into pale beach. With one foot stuck and the other in the boat, his legs start to spread, and he looks uncertain which way to go. Kari shoves him in the back with the butt of the pole, pushing him off the boat and avoiding the water. He falls face-first into the bone dust, and the boat drifts away from the shore. Kari starts to bring the boat back, but she catches sight of the boy still curled up on his seat, asleep. With one quick stroke, she pushes them further away, into the river. 

The man fought to regain his footing and turn back to Kari. His face is caked with tears and white dust. When he meets Kari’s eyes, he knows that she does not mean to come back to shore. He tries to reach out, but the boat is already too far. 

“Leo,” the man calls for the boy, and, upon hearing his name, the boy sits up. He turns around and sees only Kari at the back of the boat. “Leo!” the man shouts again, and the boy turns to see his father on the shore. The man steps toward the receding boat but stops hard before stepping into the water. He tries to inch forward enough to reach out his hand, but the waters hold him at bay. He loses his balance and lands on his backside in the fine ashen dust, still reaching out for his son.

“Daddy,” the boy cries and tries to stand. With a quick pivot of her legs, Kari rocks the boat, and the boy sits back down hard.

“Stay seated, Leo,” Kari commands, “you do not cross the border today.”

“I want Mommy and Daddy,” Leo says, and it weighs heavily on her to hear it. How many souls has Kari ferried across this river? How many have mourned their lives and loved ones and she cared not? The numbers are countless. Why should today be different? She doesn’t know, but now she must deal with the consequences.

The man continues to call for his boy. He looks around for help, but Kari knows no help will be found in that place. Like the man, Kari has made a choice for the boy, but she will not make him pay the consequences. In the distance, Kari hears the familiar baleful howl, followed soon by another, and then by a third.

“Daddy,” the boy keeps crying out, his breath hitching between with sobs. Kari recognizes the rising panic in the child with each cry. It’s the panic of a child separated from their parent. She acts before he tries to go overboard again. Having built up enough momentum for the boat to travel away from shore, Kari lifts her pole from the water. She holds the tip just above the boy’s head and lets a single drop of water fall. The droplet splashes on his scalp, and Leo freezes still. He cocks his head to one side as if listening for something in the distance, and a wisp of smoke curls up from his ear. Like wrapping cotton candy around a cardboard tube, Kari spins the pole gently in her hands and catches the wisp around the tip. She pulls up as if setting a hook in a tiny fish, and the iridescent blue gossamer continues to snake out. The current of the river now has them and is sweeping them further downstream, much further and faster than Kari wants. But she must move carefully now because what she has started, must be done to completion.

The boy sits, unmoving, and Kari keeps the pole rolling at a constant pace. Each turn pulls more and more of the thread from the boy. Within this thread, there are moving pictures, scenes from his short life, all seen from behind his eyes.

Kari sees a woman bend down and give the boy a warm kiss on his forehead. She can hear the woman say, “Be a good boy for Miss Sarah until Daddy picks you up. Mommy has to go to work, and I will see you in the morning when you wake up.”

The scene disappears around the pole, and then Kari sees the boy playing with toy cars on a carpet with images of roads and buildings. The man comes in through a sliding glass door and picks Leo up. The boy buries his face in the man’s shoulder. Kari smells the sourness of the man’s breath.

Next, the boy opens his eyes, and he is in his bed. The small seashell nightlight provides the only light in the room. Kari hears the boy’s father crying, and then other voices are speaking. Leo jumps out of bed and runs down a hallway to a flight of carpeted stairs. Kari sees the boy’s father talking to two police officers. The boy runs down the stairs and wraps his arms around the man’s leg and squeezes tight.

Kari pulls more of the thread. This time, the boy is surrounded by adults. Everyone is dressed in fancy clothes. Even the boy has on shiny shoes. There is crying and sniffling. There is a box. Daddy keeps saying that Mommy isn’t in the box, she is in heaven. But through Leo’s eye, Kari can see her lying there.

The thread seems to resist now, and Kari tightens her grip on the pole. In the next image, it is dark again. The boy is looking through a car window, watching the streetlights fly by overhead. Soon the lights are gone, replaced with a tunnel of trees. The car slows, and the boy hears the crack and pop of the tires on something crunchy. The yellowish glow of a single street light shines through the window.

The car shuts off, and the man tells Leo to unbuckle from his car seat and climb into the front. Leo fumbles with the button and manages to get it undone. He climbs over the console into the passenger seat. He sees that his Daddy was crying again because his cheeks are shiny with tears. Kari listens as the man and the boy tell stories about Mommy. The man says that Mommy has always loved them both, and she will be waiting for them on the other side of the river. Kari hears the man ask if Leo wants to go see her now, and she hears when he says yes.

“Let’s have a drink of juice before we go,” the man says and hands the boy a bottle of blue juice. The boy takes a sip from the bottle. He doesn’t like it. It tastes yucky. Daddy tells the boy to drink it anyway, that they have a long boat ride to see Mommy. Daddy tells him to drink it fast. The boy does as his Daddy tells him, and the blue drink leaves a sour aftertaste in his mouth. Through his eyes, Kari watches the man drink from his own bottle. She sees both of their eyelids start to droop.

With that last image, Kari stops turning the pole. With a deft flick, she snaps the wisp of smoke off. The boy slumps forward in the bow of the boat, his eyes closed. Kari pulls the end of the pole close to her and examines that shimmering thread wrapped around it one last time. She then dips the tip gently on top of the flowing river. The wisps begin to dissolve like cotton candy on your tongue, leaving a light blue streak in the water.

With that done, Kari extends the pole into the depths and halts the progress of the boat. She looks around to determine where they are, knowing already they are far off course. She begins her laborious task of taking them back upstream. The day turns to night as Kari guides the boat into the setting sun. With the last light of the day, Kari sees her tiny inlet, the mouth of her unnamed stretch of water. She poles the boat to the pier and ties it off. She steps to the wooden planks, her joints pop like muffled fireworks. With one arm, she lifts the sleeping boy from the boat and gently places him on his feet.

“Wake up now, Leo,” Kari whispers into his ear. The boy’s eyes blink once before closing again. Kari gently squeezes his shoulder, “Come now, time to wake up.”

In a fugue, the boy whispers, “Thank you,” to Kari as they walk down the dock onto the crushed shells of the parking lot. Kari reaches into her basket and retrieves the small plastic toy. She curls it into Leo’s hand and pats him on the back one last time. Kari watches as the boy walks back across the lot, past her bicycle and the pin oak, and to the road. Through the ages, only a few have ever walked away from her. She now wonders if any of the old ones remain to punish her. Not that it matters, she will be back here tomorrow and the next. Maybe one day, she will see that boy again when it is his time.

Henry S. Reimert has three decades of experience in technology and financial services. Having been raised in the worlds of Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons, he has spent the rest of his adult life sneaking away, if only for a few moments, to walk on alien planets, fight the demon hordes, and commune with the spirits from beyond. A story told around a campfire to entertain his kids ignited a desire to share more of what bounces around in his head. He lives in Maryland with his wife, three children, and his dog.